


Touch And Go

by fihli



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Swimming, F/F, M/M, Slow Build, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-08-08 01:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7738417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fihli/pseuds/fihli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex Hamilton was born in a place no one's ever heard of, with shots of chlorine in his veins, big plans in his head, and nothing but competition in his soul. John Laurens is his new roommate who, honestly, hates swimming. Peggy Schuyler is the new kid with a legacy to live up to. And Aaron Burr just wants to keep his team from falling apart.</p><p>Or, the found-family college swim team AU that no one asked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. TAKE YOUR MARK

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in an hour and a half and, honestly, I'm living. Blame my 10+ swimming years and Michael Phelps for winning all of those golds.

**ALEX**

Chlorine smelled like memories; of early, bleary-eyed mornings and long nights stretching on as the moon soared higher in the Caribbean night sky. Chlorine smelled like his mom’s hair, teaching him to hold his breath in the community pool in the short years between his birth and her sickness. Chlorine smelled like comfort and sweat and healthy competition, chlorine smelled like _home_.

This didn’t smell like home.

Alex hiked his backpack higher on his shoulders, dragging his wheeled suitcase closer to his feet in the same movement. He’d gotten a full ride to New York City’s King’s College off a few essay writing competitions, _not_ a swimming scholarship, and he doubted if he’d even see the pool. He hadn’t swum in years, anyway, and a college-level team didn’t need an ex-freestyler who hadn’t even stepped a toe in a pool since junior year of high school. 

_Still…_ He took a deep breath in. It was either a trick of the changing winds or he could smell the chlorine, the latex, the baby powder girls back home used to ease their caps over their long coils of hair. He took another breath in, and caught a lungful of some guy’s vape smoke.

He coughed. _Wonderful._.

As he made his way to his dorm assignment, he kept passing signs that pointed to either his swimming radar being off-the-charts, or his new school was more than a little intense about the sport. Photos of past teams lined the backsplash of full to bursting trophy cases; tiny teams of twenty or less people, arms flung around each other and medals glistening on their water-beaded chests. Alex’s own chest ached. 

He missed it. Piling into buses to head to meets, falling asleep on a pre-designated teammate’s living room floor, washing off in community showers in their local pool’s bathhouse, throwing soap at each other and being late for practice. His high school team had been his family when he hadn’t had one, and somehow that had been put on the back burner when he started studying law.

_Law_. That was his new future; that’s what he got scholarships for, that was what brought him to New York City. He buried his nose further into his map, making a turn and climbing two sets of stairs. The men’s east dorms. His new home.

“Franklin Hall,” he muttered, making another turn. The words glistened above his head in gold, along with a taped up, torn piece of notebook paper with the words _MICHAEL PHELPS HALL_ scrawled in Sharpie. He raised his eyebrows and took another deep breath in.

It smelled like a normal college dorm; food cooking, fresh and not-so-fresh laundry, someone’s potent joint, but with a definite, unmistakable undercurrent of chlorine. This was a swimming dorm.

He made his way through the common area and to his door, which already had a plaque with his name on it, along with one other. Hamilton, Laurens. 

“ _Laurens_ ,” he said before inserting his key, testing out the name, rolling it along his tongue. He was going to spend the rest of the year in really close proximity to this guy, might as well get used to saying his name.

He pushed open the door, suitcase first. Laurens wasn’t home, no one was, and Alex let out a tiny sigh of relief before throwing his backpack onto the bottom bunk. Laurens had already claimed the top, and his stuff was in a pile on the other side of the room. Alex noticed that he’d brought a mini fridge and a TV, and a cardboard cutout of Darth Vader. He raised both eyebrows.

_I mean, it could be worse. It could be a cardboard Jabba._

He stepped further into the room, stopping in his tracks when a piece of paper crinkled under his shoe. It was thumb-worn and old, and Alex smoothed the creases on his pants before looking at it.

The aqua blue flyer was bordered by MS Paint waves and really awful font choices, advertising the King’s College Rebels, the college’s nationally acclaimed swim team, and their new season tryouts, the last day of check-in, at four in the afternoon.

Alex checked his watch. It was three forty-two.

His jammers, pair one of two, were in the outside pocket of his suitcase. He didn’t have a cap (since high school he’d let his hair grow out, and at that time he had enough to make a ponytail), but where there was a pool, there was a lost and found. His goggles were in his backpack’s innermost pocket.

Before he had a chance to really think about it, he was changed. He’d thrown a sweatshirt over his bare chest and a pair of basketball shorts over his jammers, slipped his feet into his black wide-strap sandals, slipped his goggles into the sweatshirt’s pouch, and headed to the help center.

“I’m looking for the pool,” he said quickly as soon as he reached the first floor’s main desk. It was bustling; there were a lot of kids that needed help finding their dorms, a lot of parents needing help finding their kids, and a lot of kids just wanting to get rid of their parents. One guy, his brown hair undecidedly rumpled, looked up with wild eyes.

“Listen, you’re going to have to wait a minute, I have Mrs. Adams on line one and a donor on line two--” He gave Alex a once-over. “Did you say the _pool_?”

“Yeah,” Alex replied. “Aren’t tryouts in like fifteen minutes?”

“But they’re for _swimmers_.”

Alex gave the guy a deadpan stare. He was more than aware he didn’t look like an athlete; from his less-than-average height to his less-than-godlike body, he’d poked and prodded and stressed his way through high school and beyond. But he’d be damned if anyone kept him from that chlorine and feeling at home, finally, let alone some help-desk guy who didn’t even know his name.

“Just tell me which way to go.”

“Here.” The guy slammed down the phone and beckoned Alex to follow him. “I’ll show you.”

Alex clutched the goggles in his pocket and followed the guy, who turned out to be named Charles Lee. Lee, as it turned out, was quite the team follower, and had been a fan of the Rebels before even coming to King’s College. 

“And Arnold, he was the captain a few years ago, he went _national_ before, you know, deflecting,” he commented as they climbed a humid set of stairs to the pool’s bleachers. “He went water polo, can you believe that?”

“What a traitor,” Alex replied, only half listening, as they climbed into the bottom row. The ceiling bleachers had a full view of the entire pool; red and blue lane lines cordoning off eight lanes, starting blocks at the far end, big containers piled high with kickboards and flippers and pull buoys at the other. 

“This is the practice pool,” Lee said. “The big one’s across campus. It’s Olympic sized. Pretty intense.”

Alex just nodded, still scanning down below. He liked this pool; the twenty-five yards of bright blue chlorine reminded him of his high school pool back in Nevis. A few people were already pacing the deck; a few guys, a few girls.

“Recognize any of them?” he asked Lee.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s the current team. They keep it small. I think they’re only planning on taking on one or two newbies this year; that is, if there’s anyone good out there.”

The biggest guy on the deck _by far_ started stretching, tugging one arm over his broad chest. 

“Who the hell is that?” he asked. “He looks like he should be a wrestler, not a fucking _swimmer_.” 

“That’s Herc Mulligan,” Lee said. “He’s also on the football team and he can _move_. Not the best form I’ve ever seen, but I heard he literally kicked a guy right out the water.”

“I believe it.”

“That guy next to him?” Lee pointed to a bouncy guy with the most hair Alex had ever seen. “That’s Lafayette. His real name’s Gilbert, but he goes by Lafayette. It’s on his cap and everything. Him and Herc are roommates, best friends, whatever.”

He pointed to a small clump of two beside the clean whiteboard. “The bigger guy is James Madison, the smaller one’s Aaron Burr. Burr is _insane_ with backstroke, you have to come to a meet just to watch the guy. He almost singlehandedly brought us to Leagues last year.”

Burr turned and scanned the bleachers, and for a second Alex almost hid in his sweatshirt. He had the most intense gaze Alex had ever seen, even from a distance it felt like he was looking into his soul and the guy’s eyes had barely even touched him.

“What’s his story?” he asked. Lee shrugged.

“He’s kind of the opposite of an open book. _Him_ , on the other hand--” Lee pointed to someone who’d just walked in from the locker room, one hand pushing back his mane of hair, the other holding a bright purple cap and a pair of goggles. “That’s Thomas Jefferson, team captain.”

Jefferson stopped and posed like he knew people were watching. Alex caught a glimpse of his jammers (purple, because why not) as his shorts slipped down over his hips. 

“What’s he like?”

Lee shrugged again. “I’ve never met him.”

“He looks like a dick.” Alex squinted. “No one with abs like that can be a nice person.”

Jefferson’s abs, eight of them, Alex counted, were defined like someone had taken a marker and drawn them on. Lafayette and Mulligan approached him, pushing shoulders and laughing like they were old friends, and they were joined by Burr and Madison. 

A girl, long, lithe, and dangerous, came out of the girl’s side of the locker rooms. Her suit was black but she wore a ripped pink drag suit overtop, and her long hair was braided down her back.

“That’s Angelica Schuyler,” Lee said. “She’s the captain for the girls’ team. She’ll fuck you up.”

“I believe it,” Alex said. Three other girls joined her; an Asian girl with two blue suits layered over each other, a tall girl with dreadlocks and a bright orange neck-to-knee suit, and another girl with waterproof winged eyeliner that Alex could see all the way up in the bleachers. “That’s the whole team?”

“They lost three girls last year,” Lee said. “Graduation. Blue suit is Eliza Schuyler, they’re adopted, sisters. They have another sister who’s trying out this year and she’ll probably get in.”

“Even if she’s not good?”

Lee shrugged. “There’s two ways to get on this team; get grandfathered in, or be good as fuck.”

Alex did another scan of the pool, his palms sweaty.

“Orange suit is Theodosia Bartow, and the other girl is Adrienne de Noailles. Both kickass, both record breakers. This whole team is just…” Lee sighed. “They’re incredible.”

“Why haven’t you tried out if you like the sport so much?”

He laughed at that, and slapped Alex in the chest. “Come on, man. That’s like _you_ trying out. It’s not going to work. Speaking of…” He stood. “The desk calls. Let me know how tryouts go.”

He left, and his laugh trailed after him, lingering far after he’d gone and left Alex alone in the bleachers.

•••

After Lee had said it was impossible for him to make the team, there was no way Alex wasn’t going to try. So he left his sweatshirt and his sandals in the bleachers and joined the group of about twenty people gathered on the damp pool deck, hiding in the back with his hands in the pockets of his basketball shorts. Team Captain Jefferson was pacing on the other side of the pool, talking in a muttered undercurrent to Burr, while Angelica leaned on the wall nearest to the group of trial swimmers, texting.

“What do you swim?” someone asked. He turned and was met with a sudden splash of curls and freckles, quirked eyebrows and white teeth in a wide grin. “Name’s John Laurens, and I don’t fucking want to be here.”

“Alex Hamilton,” he replied. “Are you my roommate?”

Laurens held out his hand and Alex shook it. “The one and only. Hope you don’t mind Darth Vader?”

“Not at all, man. And I like breaststroke the best, but I can freestyle pretty well, I guess.”

“I don’t think _pretty well_ is going to cut it for these guys,” Laurens said, crossing his arms over his, rather scrawny (compared to the competition), freckle-covered chest. “I hate swimming, I really fucking do. But that’s what I did in middle school, that’s what I did in high school, that’s what I did my first two years of college in South Carolina, and my dad’ll be damned if I don’t do it here, too. Fuck swimming, man.”

“Are you any good?”

Laurens shrugged. “Free and back, yeah, I’m decent. We’ll see after today, huh?”

“Why don’t you just blow the tryouts? Tell your dad you couldn’t make the cut?”

“See, that’s a good idea,” he said, grinning, “except for the fact I’m the most competitive motherfucker alive, so, not going to happen.”

Alex laughed as Madison blew a whistle, loud and shrill, making everyone stop in their tracks. Burr stepped forward.

“Good afternoon,” he said slowly, rather formally, in Alex’s opinion. “My name’s Aaron Burr, and I’m team captain for the men under our senior captain--” he threw a salute towards Jefferson “--and if you have any questions during this hour of tryouts please come see me. Ang?”

Angelica Schuyler stepped forward. “And I’m Angelica, senior captain for the women. Please don’t have any questions. Just swim.”

A ripple of laughter, some genuine, some unsure, swept through the assembled swim team hopefuls. A girl on Alex’s other side cackled. She had a butter yellow suit on and her hair was undone, tumbling over her shoulders.

“That’s my sister. She fuckin’ means it.”

Alex grinned over at her. “I’m Alex.”

She returned it. “Peggy.”

Burr clapped his hands as Madison shrilled the whistle again. 

“We’re going to do starts and turns first,” he said. “Line up behind the blocks and at the whistle, swim whatever you want down to the other end, do a turn, and get out. Don’t run into other people, be mindful of your lane. Ready?”

Alex got in line behind Laurens after borrowing one of Peggy’s caps, shaking out his nervousness through his hands and feet. He almost didn’t care about tryouts anymore; the pool was there, crisp and cold and blue, and he wanted to get in. When it was his turn, Laurens jumped in the pool to do his start, the first person to swim backstroke, and Alex caught a glimpse of both Jefferson and Madison watching him, the latter’s eyebrow quirked in interest. 

Alex climbed up onto the block after the whistle blew and John pushed off the wall; the sandpaper scratchiness working on the bottom of his feet like it had only been yesterday at his home pool in Nevis. He wasn’t even sure what stroke he was going to do when the whistle blew and he was airborne without a care in the world.

His overlapped hands cut the water first, the cold a shock to his system, the change in environment enough to force his mouth open, letting a few bubbles escape. He pulled the water close to his chest and pushed it away, frog-kicking to the surface and making his way down the lane as quick as he could, coming up for air after each stroke, bobbing his head. 

He did a breaststroke turn at the end of the lane, doing his best not to splash, and got out. He met Laurens at the other end of the pool and they both watched as Peggy, a supreme scowl cut across her face, swam backstroke, her powerful arms propelling her across the pool quicker than anyone else they’d seen so far.

“Looks like she got the Schuyler gene,” Alex commented. Laurens laughed.

“Bro, they’re all adopted.”

“Still.”

After a few more rounds of starts and turns, a few people had already been asked to leave the pool. Alex and Laurens were still both there, along with Peggy Schuyler and another girl who’d introduced herself as Maria Lewis. Jefferson and Angelica were now sitting side-by-side on the pool’s farthest benches; Jefferson chewing on the end strap of his goggles and Angelica watching the tryouts with narrowed eyes.

Burr put them through their paces; a one hundred I.M., a fifty free, a mock relay. Alex could barely catch his breath, but he did his best to try and hide it. He couldn’t help that he wasn’t in the best shape of his life. Long hours at the law library instead of the pool tended to do that to a person.

They were dismissed to the showers after an ending pep talk (more like series of threats) from Angelica, and a lot more scrutiny from both of the senior captains. Before the door swung shut behind him, Alex caught a glimpse of the real practice starting; Both of Jefferson’s arms slicing through the water like a knife through butter as he swam butterfly, Mulligan picking up Eliza and throwing her into the deep end, Lafayette dumping a capful of water over his own head before he tried to fit his hair into it. 

That same heartache that had started as soon as he smelled chlorine revved back up again.

This was his sport, this was a team, this was _family_ , and he only hoped he made the cut.

•••

He hadn’t talked to Laurens since the previous day’s tryouts; he’d showered and found some dinner in the cafeteria across campus and immediately fallen asleep, head pillowed in his arms and dreams of blue waves and strong arms and purple jammers running through his head. That morning he’d found a note on his suitcase along with his damp suit--

_Roomie, tryouts are posted today at eleven! See u there, J._

It was ten fifty-eight, and Alex threw on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top and ran to the campus center. Lee was nowhere to be found behind his help desk, and a clump of people were crowded around a bulletin board. 

“Yo, roomie, they’re posted!” Alex could see Laurens’ freckled hand waving to him from the center of the crowd. He started to push his way through. “I made it on, it fucking sucks!”

“Am I there?” Alex asked, ashamed that his voice almost cracked with the question. He couldn’t be disappointed if he wasn’t, he couldn’t be disappointed… 

“I don’t know,” Laurens replied as Alex finally made his way through the crowd. “What’s your name, man?”

Alex looked at the fluttering piece of paper, his huge, expectant eyes scanning down the list of names until he saw two familiar words, printed in bold Arial, right under Laurens’s.

_Alexander Hamilton._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES: King’s College was in NYC back in the day, and I know it’s not called that anymore. We’re not here for accuracy. We’re here for Thomas Jefferson swimming butterfly.
> 
> NOTES #2: This fic will be on hold until I finish my current WIP (Sons Of Libertea, cough). This will be soon, so bookmark if you like, I will be back and hopefully so will you!
> 
> NOTES #3: What ships will be in this fic? Hell if I know. I'll let you all know as soon as I figure it out.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments/kudos are immensely appreciated, and you can always find me at fihli.tumblr.com! 
> 
> -Gab


	2. DRY LAND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team meeting.... In Burr's dorm.

**AARON**

Aaron Burr owned three swim caps. The first was nostalgic; his black cap from high school, bright yellow letters spelling NEWARK on one side and A. BURR on the other. He used it for practice every once in a while, but it usually stayed in the side pocket of his bulky Speedo backpack. The second was strictly for practice; a sleek maroon one that Lafayette had bought him half-priced from the outlet the year before after his old practice cap ripped unexpectedly. And the third was his meet cap; black, with a splash of an American flag on one side with BURR underneath it, and KING’S COLLEGE REBELS on the other side in all white.

They all had the same one. Both of the Schuyler sisters had their name shortened; A. and E. SCHUY. It rhymed with fly, and Eliza appreciated that. Jefferson, who had tried to get the nickname “Teej” to stick back on Burr’s first year on the team, had just gone with his last name, same as Burr. Mulligan, Madison, and Adrienne didn't have their first initials, either. 

Theodosia went with T. BARTOW, and, thanks to some inside joke that Burr didn't even know, their coach, George Washington, had ordered Lafayette’s cap to say MARQUIS on the side all in white. He'd laughed for about twenty minutes after Washington had given it to him. Lafayette had been on the high school team in Washington's hometown, and Lafayette followed him to the team he coached in New York; the two of them were almost like family. 

They all were almost like family, if Burr was honest with himself. They shared food, they fought like siblings, they were close-knit and honest with each other and vicious with anyone not in the inner circle. Burr didn’t make friends easily, he was a loner by choice, but it was hard to be alone when a group of people like his team forced him to love them.

This part of being on a team was his least favorite; the beginning of every year, the tryouts and subsequent picking new people to join. Burr didn’t do well with new people, again, by choice.

“So,” Thomas drawled, leaning back on Burr’s bed. He was in a pair of sweatpants and nothing else; if there was anything Burr knew about Thomas Jefferson after being his roommate for the first two years of school, he was shirtless whenever possible. It wasn’t a swimmer thing, it was an arrogance thing. “What’d you think of this year’s fresh fish?”

“Freshmen,” James said from the desk in the corner. He had his tablet out and was tapping something on the screen, not even looking at Thomas, who had started to pout.

“I was making a joke, James, _God_. Freshmen, like new kids, but fresh _fish_ , ‘cause they’re swimming…”

“I think he got it,” Burr deadpanned from his place on the floor. Thomas kicked him, but he was too far away, and Burr moved his legs even farther out of his reach. Thomas thrived off of physical contact; it was something Burr had to learn to deal with his first year of school when he’d moved into what was known as Michael Phelps Hall and learned he’d be sharing a room with Virginia’s own butterfly champion. Thomas had ignored Burr’s hand, out and ready for a respectful shake, instead slinging an arm around his shoulders and proclaiming loudly to the hallway milling with other freshmen--

“ _Y’all didn’t know you were in a dorm with future Olympians, huh?_ ”

That, as Burr would quickly learn, was classic Jefferson. His roommate was cocky, loud and brash to anyone who cared to listen and louder still for anyone who didn’t. However, as Burr would learn at a less breakneck speed, that was an act.

Thomas carried anxiety like Burr carried his old inhaler, shoved deep in his jacket pocket, hidden and concealed with the hope that he’d never have to deal with it. He charmed and conned everyone around him into thinking what he wanted them to think; he was personable, he was charismatic, he was able to speak in front of a classroom and breathe normally at the same time, _it was just, he had so much to_ _do_ , _homework-wise, could he just do a written essay instead?_ that no one knew.

No one knew that he buried it deep, deep in pages of longhand writing he kept in manila folders, deep in trembling violin strings and his rosin-covered bow, deep in the pool, where he didn’t have to talk to anyone or make eye-contact or live up to expectations, it was just twenty-five yards of shimmering blue.

No one knew but James, and eventually Burr, the night before the freshman swim tryouts were posted, when Thomas started shaking and no one was in their dorm but the two of them. Burr was never good at comfort, but he was good at sitting and _being_ , and just his solid presence seemed to be somewhat comforting to both of them. Thomas never seemed embarrassed about it, just grateful, and that night became the foundation of their friendship.

James was more difficult. Where Thomas was flighty, James was stable, where Thomas was energetic, James was collected, where Thomas was flustered, James was thick-skinned. He was quick and sharp, and had been dating Thomas since they were in high school together. He made Burr nervous, and it wasn’t until the three of them were the new freshman boys on the Rebels that James even acknowledged his boyfriend’s roommate’s existence. 

As soon as they started practice, however, the three of them were inseparable. Thomas and his incomparable butterfly, James and his solid breaststroke, Burr and his trophy-winning backstroke. They made the team and then they _made_ the team, the three of them and the other new freshman, a girl with the weight of a legacy to rival Burr and Thomas combined and the most powerful freestyle any of them had ever seen.

Angelica Schuyler forced her way into the three of their little swimming clique; in their dorm, in the freshman lane at practice, even one memorable time with a spray bottle in the men’s locker room. She was vibrant and fun, even more sarcastic than James, and she hated when people called her _Ang_. They called her _Ang_.

“Hey, Ang,” Thomas said, still lounging back on Burr’s bed. Angelica pushed her way into the room, a bag of what Burr hoped was candy secured firmly in her arms. “We’re talking about the new kids. Weigh in?”

“It’s a team meeting, Thomas,” Angelica said, dropping the bag on the floor in front of James’s feet and squeezing onto Burr’s bed as well. “That’s kind of what we’re all doing, right?”

“Why we have to have team meetings in here’s beyond me,” Burr said, rifling through the bag. She’d gotten a family-sized bag of Twizzlers, which he immediately ripped open and passed a handful up to James. Thomas sat up on the bed and made grabby hands at Burr until he tossed him a Milky Way.

“I have a lot of thoughts,” Burr said over the sounds of Thomas ripping open the candy bar. “Can we get into it?’

Angelica raised an eyebrow. “Are any of your thoughts _no one else is allowed on the team, please, God, no?_ ”

Burr shot her a glare. She shrugged.

“I know how you get this time of year.”

“Ang,” James said, “where’s Eliza? We were supposed to start three minutes ago.”

“ _Three minutes_ , James,” Angelica deadpanned. “She’ll be here. Chill.”

The door to Burr’s dorm slammed open and Lafayette and Herc barrelled through. They were hardly ever separate, attached at the hip like a couple of damn clingy octopi, the bouncy Frenchman with his omnipotent fluffy ponytail and the big, stocky communications major from the Bronx. They’d started dating at the end of the previous school year and all through the summer, and from what Burr had heard, it was going pretty well. 

Actually, when he’d called Herc on his birthday in August, he’d let out a deep laugh that rattled Burr’s windows all the way in Jersey. 

“Damn, dude, this is fuckin’ crazy!”

Burr took that to believe it was going pretty well.

Herc dropped to the floor near James, and Lafayette pulled the swivel chair out from Burr’s desk. Burr threw Herc the bag of candy, he rooted through it and passed it off to his boyfriend. 

“We’re still waiting for Eliza,” he commented. Angelica elbowed him.

“Adrienne’s not here, either,” Lafayette commented, pulling something up on his phone and typing, thumbs flying. “I think she went out with Theo earlier, something about needing wedges for some party they’re going to this weekend.”

“Fuck, they’re already invited places?” Thomas passed one hand over his hair and Burr caught the tail-end of an eye roll. “We gotta step up our game, guys, I _know_ Noartow won the hottest couple of the year _last_ year, but—”

“You’d rather die than go to a party,” Angelica muttered, right as Lafayette cocked his head to one side.

“I thought we decided their couple name was Backstrfly?”

“Noartow’s better,” Jefferson said, and threw something at Angelica. “And you shut up, Schuyler, just ‘cause I hate stupid parties doesn’t mean I don’t want to be invited.”

“Noted,” she shot back, and he stuck his tongue out.

“Twelve texts is enough, du Motier, good God.” Adrienne de Noailles pushed her way through the already crowded dorm, pulling Theo Bartow after her. Both girls had two shopping bags each, and Theo was carrying a greasy Auntie Anne’s bag that Jefferson made grabby hands at until she threw it to him. 

“I just worry about you,” Lafayette returned, grinning brilliantly, and she shook her head in reply. The two of them settled at the foot of the bed, immediately tangled together in a clump of Adrienne’s long hair and Theo’s dark lipstick and both of their athletic shorts and Adidas sandals. 

Adrienne and Lafayette had had a thing, Burr remembered, at the beginning of the previous school year. It had fizzled, but the two of them were still close. 

“Everyone here?” he asked.

“Eliza!” Jefferson called. Angelica rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, this is a little ridiculous, even for her.”

“Hold up,” Theo said, pulling her phone out of the waistband of her shorts. It rung twice, and then Eliza picked up. Theo put it on speaker, and they all screamed.

“Yo, where you at?” Theo asked loudly as soon as the noise quieted down. Burr heard a rush of static as Eliza let out one of her famous longsuffering sighs.

“I’m legit like two halls away,” she said.

“I don’t believe you!”

“Booooo,” Herc booed.

“Hisssss,” Lafayette hissed.

“Please come quick so I can get these people out of my room,” Burr pleaded, joking but also not really. Thomas laughed.

“Concur!”

The door opened and Burr heard Eliza hang up her phone as she pushed her way in. Her dark hair was pulled into a high pony held back by a bright blue headband, and she was also wearing athletic shorts and a cutoff tank. It was rare to see any of his teammates _not_ in shorts and a tank, even in the dead of winter.

Eliza was also bearing two carrying trays full of slushies, and Herc gasped.

“If that Coke one’s for me, everything’s forgiven!”

She passed them out, a Coke for Herc, cherry for Angelica and Theo, blue raspberry for Thomas, Mountain Dew for James, Lafayette, and Adrienne, and root beer for herself and Burr. He took a sip, grateful for the sugar and for the cold. The room was getting warm, crammed full of people like it had no right to be. Damn meetings.

“Okay,” Eliza said, sitting on the floor by Adrienne, “the new kids.”

“Fresh fish,” Thomas corrected. Burr caught a glimpse of James rolling his eyes good naturedly.

“Sure,” Eliza continued. She took a piece of lined paper out of her bag and unfolded it. Eliza was late a good amount of time, but she was nothing if not prepared. “We got four, two guys and two girls.”

“Peggy!” Angelica drew out her younger sister’s name like a cheer, pumping her fist up and down. Eliza grinned.

“Peggy Schuyler’s one of the girls,” she said. “And Maria Lewis. Let’s start with her. Uh, Maria’s a transfer sophomore, nineteen years old—”

“Hell of a breaststroke,” Theo commented between sips of slushie. Eliza made a note.

“Yeah, she swam for a team upstate, right?” Adrienne asked. Angelica nodded.

“I talked to her already. I think she’ll be a good fit. A little nervous and flighty, but a good fit.”

“So Maria’s in,” Eliza went on. “And we all know Peggy, right? Freshman, kicked ass at tryouts, bears the honorable Schuyler name—”

“I was so scared she’d suck,” Thomas said. “But goddamn, that backstroke, right? She could pull the moon to Earth.”

Eliza grinned. “That’s Peg.”

Burr coughed. “And the guys?”

“Jeez, Burr, it’s almost like you don’t want us in your room,” Herc said. Theo smirked.

“I love having team meetings in the antisocial dorm.”

“Oh my God, this is the worst,” Burr muttered, just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. Eliza shook her paper.

“And for the guys, we got John Laurens—”

“Which one’s that?” James asked.

“The junior transfer from South Carolina,” Burr said, pulling up notes on his phone. “He had a lot of freckles.”

“ _Oh_ , the one that’s all limbs,” Thomas said. “Literally, the gangliest kid I’ve ever seen in my life. Good backstroke, decent freestyle. He went leagues in high school, didn’t he?”

“Yup,” Burr said, scrolling.

“And Alex Hamilton,” Eliza finished. 

“Another junior transfer,” Burr said. “Hasn’t swam in forever, but you guys insisted we put him on.”

“He was pretty good,” Lafayette said. “The ponytail, right?”

“Yeah, the ponytail,” Theo said. “And I thought he was good, too. His free form was nice.”

“Nice doesn’t cut it,” Burr said, a little more snappy than he intended to. Theo raised an eyebrow at his tone. “We don’t want to be _good_ , we want to be the best.”

“I agree with Burr on this one,” Angelica said. “I know you guys insisted—”

“The senior captain insisted.” Thomas’s smirk was sharp and pointed. “Listen, I don’t care what y’all do, or what y’all think, Alex Hamilton’s on our team.”

“For better or for worse,” James added under his breath. Thomas pointed at him.

“James gets it.”

“Hey, are we going to John & Jay’s tonight, or what?” Lafayette asked, immediately and effectively changing the subject. “It’s karaoke night, and I promised Theo that one day she’d see Hercules’s rendition of _My Heart Will Go On_ —”

Herc spluttered. “I thought you said you never told anyone!”

Lafayette grinned, wide and shining. “The team doesn’t count, _mon ami_.”

Herc groaned, leaning his head back and letting it loose towards the ceiling. The rest of them started making plans to go out, Theo and Adrienne left to get ready for their party, and even Thomas started digging through his closet for something to wear to karaoke, while Burr sat, pushed to the corner of his bed with his phone still lit up in his hand.

He’d typed Alex Hamilton’s name with one thumb while watching the tryouts, and three words after it, bright immediate, and damning, and now they were staring back at him.

_Not good enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm not going to have a complete update schedule for this one, so if you liked it please subscribe! 
> 
> Comments/kudos are always appreciated, and you can always come scream with me at fihli.tumblr.com! Sup, HamFam, I'm back. (Kinda.)
> 
> -Gab


End file.
